United Airlines recently revealed its impressive financial performance for 2024, whereby the company reported record revenue and very healthy profits, with an even more positive outlook for 2025.
Continue reading: United Flight Attendants Disappointed By Shrinking Profit Sharing
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
When it comes to people like Abraham, it's clear that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism have a prophet-sharing arrangement
It is clear that you dot understand the concept:
"I mean, United had an amazing year, and performed considerably better than the previous year, yet there was a massive decrease in profit sharing."
In fact it is because the profits are NOT considerably higher than the previous year, that profit sharing went down.
The formula incentivizes to do better year after year. You could also claim that 2022 and 2023 were anomalies that led to higher than expected profit sharing due to the slow recovery from covid.
The funny thing is... they pay union dues for people to negotiate this for them. Delta flight attendants get the best of everything just because of the threat of a union.
“United .., performed considerably better than the previous year”
This isn’t true. Their profit was only slightly better than the previous year.
Did you not look at the chart you embedded in your post?
So what’s embarrassing for United Flight Attendants is AFA Alaska got 11.46% which is higher than Delta and not noted in your article. Yet Alaska brought in less revenue than United so it’s clear how poorly United is treating their flight attendants. United does have the option to change the profit sharing formula they opted not to. It would need to go through the Board of Directors, but it is possible
They are now one of the lowest paying airlines as Delta, Southwest, American and soon Alaska pay higher. All because they refuse to give their flight attendants a contract after nearly 4 years.It reflects poorly on United and their leadership and it’s very understandable why the flight attendants are so upset
United and Scott Kirby don't care lol all they care about is profits. Just yesterday many senior flight attendants at United were telling new hires to switch airlines ASAP because morale has never been lower and it's never been this bad. Many new hires are struggling out of bases like SFO, Washington DC, Boston, San Diego, Honolulu and LAX because we haven't gotten a new contract and it's been nearly 4 years. Many stories of flight attendants living out their cars and United and Scott Kirby aren't doing anything but blaming it on the union.
UA is paying HALF of what DL is paying on a system basis for 2024 - a difference of more than $600 million. it isn't just the UA FAs that are coming up short.
Not only does this prove why DL FAs don't need a union and won't vote one in but it also shows that UA's costs will go up. There is no reason why UA FAs should be paid a penny less than their highest competitors.
It sounds like the UA flight attendants are being held to similar profit-sharing triggers as management.
If you want a bigger share of the profits, buy company stock like any other investor. You can't just keep putting your hand out for more "entitlements" when you're already being paid for your work, and your employment conditions are hardly arduous.
Currently, United flight attendants are the lowest-paid flight attendants of major airlines. They are years and years behind on updating their contract. this contract is 7 years old. Before COVID-19, before record inflation. Management has no motivation to give them a new contract until they assert themselves which they seem unwilling to do. I would be worried about booking with them this year because at some point the FA work group will need to strike or CAOS to push the negotiations forward. Earnings look good but they are sitting on a dangerous contract negotiation and the Union group had a 99% strike vote . So it could happen at any time.
I'd say it might be a good idea to rework the incentive program if it rewards alternating terrible and good years more than consistently great years.
Standard crappy corporate culture. They reported great earnings with 2025 guidance being their most profitable, oil at relatively low cost atm which is why my airline stocks made so much this quarter. But they ain't about to share it with their staff if they can help it. I remember the huge consulting company I had one worked for giving me a 0.5% raise telling me they can't afford it. 2 weeks later the company reports a huge profit and revenue. Smh. I then spelled out for the company with math on a long formal letter on how much business I brought in and my worth to the company and how I was prepared to find employment elsewhere. It took that effort which should not be so but they gave me a big raise and bonus. I left 6 months later telling them exactly that, I should not have to justify my worth in writing when you can clearly see how much money I had made for you.
The DL FAs receive 10% PS this year because of ALPA. In fact, Delta has been paying all employees the same PS formula as the pilot group, based on the negotiations between Delta & ALPA in years past. This is not opinion, it's fact. So DL FAs can thank the unionized pilot group. It's not charity on part of Delta.
We made lots of money but lots less for you because you did well for us in consecutive years. Thanks for the massive profitability though - Kirby.
Sounds about right.
Yeah, the average FA has lots of money spare at the end of the month to throw onto the stock market. Muppet.
Tell us you know nothing about the industry without telling us. Agree with Ronnie, you’re a muppet.
The article seems to imply that the agreed formula resulted in a massive reduction in the bonus amount. A little (like 2 minutes) of research would find the 2025 bonus amount was $681M and 2024 was $584.3M. So the bonus pool was 86% of the prior year. Granted that each FA share may vary based on hours worked, etc. year over year but most FAs will get between 80 and 90% of the prior year's bonus --- nothing close to the massive reduction what you would read from the percentages.
Also there is nothing stopping the union negotiating team from having any retroactive increase to the 2024 pay rate would also be applied to the profit sharing computation. That would push the 2024 total amount over 2023.
and again, DL paid twice as much profit sharing as UA did for all of its employees ( $681 million for UA).
DL FAs didn't need retro because DL was the first to raise salaries across the board post-covid.
the AFA can negotiate what they want but, if they don't get everything that DL FAs got and the retro to it, the AFA is giving DL FAs reason to never vote for a union.
and don't argue about all of the supposed "guarantees" that unionized FAs have.
United flight attendants will NEVER get the contract they deserve until they have a new union. One that will fight for what they deserve.
Not only was profit sharing down for F/As, it was also down for Ramp Service Agents as well. Last year (2023), we got 3.3595%. This year (2024), we got 3.1673% (roughly 2.5 weeks of additional pay). United made more money this year, while all the employees suffer without new contracts, low profit sharing. Delta employees get 10% and Alaska just announced, they are getting more than 11%, or roughly 6 weeks of additional pay.